Sorting Through The Bewildering World Of Therapeutic Apps

Mobile apps offer tools for everything from depression, social anxiety, and binge eating to phobias, OCD, postpartum problems, and substance abuse recovery. In some cases, they’re even being marketed as actual providers of therapy, or at least therapy-like help. Since solace-by-app is here to stay, what do therapists need to know?

When Moment-to-Moment Awareness Isn't Enough

As the mindfulness movement sweeps through our field, many therapists are discovering that traditional contemplative practices grounded in detached self-observation have limits. When we’re overwhelmed with intense and disturbing emotions, just observing moment-to-moment experience is often not enough.

Using Micro-Practices for Self-Care

The growing interest in micro self-care mirrors the developments in understanding self-directed neuroplasticity: small and frequent works better to create desirable neural pathways than big and seldom.

Highlights From Symposium 2015

After a brutal winter that would’ve given Ernest Shackleton pause, more than 3,700 therapists welcomed the opportunity to escape cabin fever, get out of the house, and greet spring at the 38th annual Psychotherapy Networker Symposium. What follows are some of the highlights from this year’s exploration of the clinical innovations, scientific advances, and technological developments shaping the future of our field.

Seven Myths about Meditation: A one-size approach doesn’t fit all

The Perils of Mainstream Acceptance

By replacing the exotic aura of spirituality with the language of science and a down-to-earth self-help approach, mindfulness has brought practices once considered New Age hokum into mainstream acceptance. But as it increasingly becomes a product to be sold in the marketplace, does it risk losing something vital to its transformative power?

Staying in the Moment with Jon Kabat-Zinn

A Conversation with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Since he first developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn has not only become a key figure in shaping our ideas about physical and mental health, but a cultural icon. Here he talks about handling his public role and being placed on a pedestal.

The Paradox of Mindfulness in Clinical Practice

If we engage in meditation long enough, we discover that our sense of being a separate, coherent, enduring self is actually a delusion maintained by our constant inner chatter. Seeing ourselves in this light can pull the rug out from under us in alarming—though potentially liberating—ways.

Creating a Sacred Space in Therapy

As pressures mount to narrow the focus of psychotherapy into a medicalized, evidence-based approach, one of the teachers who first helped integrate mindfulness into psychotherapy argues for recognizing the role of ritual and embracing the sacred in our work.